The Results Are In... Take 2

I'm fairly new to the forums, 2 years old to the game, and a huge scrapper fanatic. I find some of these numbers pretty interesting. I think I might have to roll me a MA scrapper.

But as for the Scrappers vs Brutes debate...eh...I see the difference at times it does look like brutes have the advantage but then again I do enjoy being able to jump straight in and do full damage from square one with out being bugged by lack of fury from massive mezzes. But on the other hand most scrappers I roll can solo AVs, brutes I've rolled can solo AVs. Brutes have a slight survivability over scrappers, do I think it's enough to change either AT? Eh...give scrappers a tiny bit more base HP and call it squarsey? Heh.

"With great moustache comes great responsibility" - Zee Captain

QR.

This thread makes me feel smart.

I wish I had something to contribute but my highest melee character is a 37 Eng/Elec brute.

Just wanted to say, ur threadz gives me brainz stuffs

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brutes must play non stop. there is no waiting for people to res. no waiting for people to catch up. no waiting for fulcrum to recharge. no waiting for a fresh sb/fort/forge. no waiting.

not all brute secondaries can even play like that. MOST have serious end issues especially playing in a team like this. multiple brutes in a team means one has fury, the rest do not.

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FALSE. Brutes 'must' play 'non-stop'? No, brutes CAN play non-stop, build high fury, and out-damage scrappers AND out survive them AND out aggro manage them, which means they can outclass scrappers in everything. OR they CAN take their time, at which point they do less damage than scrappers, but still retain advantages in survivability and aggro management.

So in those two play-styles, the brute is better at everything in one, while trading dmg for survivability in the other. And as has been mentioned by other posters, the playstyle where brutes are universally superior is a playstyle shared by both at's and the majority of those who play them. If you still consider that parity, then I guess we'll just have to respectfully disagree.

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That's not exactly a fair evaluation. First of all, this presumes that the "benefits" being counted are always benefits, and they aren't always. For example, Brutes don't actually have "aggro manangement" they have aggro drawing ability. That's not always welcome to all players: in fact a big problem with low level tankers for many less-experienced players is Gauntlet-cide.

Second of all, this is a weirdly character-centric perspective when talking about playstyle. When a player plays with a particular playstyle, its not always a "choice" in the sense being discussed here. Its often just their playstyle, period. Its a false option to suggest that players that play Brutes always have the "option" to speed up and generate more damage, because that option may simply not exist for the player even if it exists for the character (Brute).

Mechanically speaking, the Brute is trading higher offense for lower survivability when going faster, on the presumption that going faster induces more incoming damage. Some players compensate through altered tactics and build strategies, but others can't or don't. For some players, the hurdle required to overcome to make this change is trivial, but for others its not. The archetype isn't balanced for expert players, but the playerbase as a whole where that trade is significant.

Reminder: the majority of this game's playerbase gains significant debt. They were not able to solo blasters or keep them consistently alive in teams prior to I11 (and who knows what the situation is now). They still use SOs. They can't always find the trainers.

The performance tradeoffs are designed for the average player. For players like us that are extremely build and playstyle-capable, the game doesn't (and couldn't really) offer "even" trades. Instead, it just tries to fence us in so we don't go too crazy off the map. If you think Brutes are better than Scrappers in virtually all cases for expert players, that's probably not seen as an especially important problem to resolve.


Incidentally, on the subject of Fury generation. My own personal experience from both conventional play and explicit testing is that in teams in high density single-level maps, its possible to generate and then consistently maintain high Fury, although I doubt the average player can do it consistently. Solo, especially in indoor multi-level maps, its essentially impossible except in bursts. The spawn density is simply too low while solo (on any difficulty level) for most maps to provide enough "fury-fuel" to do that, and any map with doors, elevators, and hallways is likely to provide too much travel distance to maintain high levels of fury spawn to spawn. The playstyle also requires significant attention paid to endurance efficiency in terms of both build and combat activity. Given that toggle-management is a curse word in this game in many circles, I doubt if a lot of players besides the very performance-minded would go through the trouble.

(The irony and the catch is that Fury is a form of ram-jet: high fury = higher endurance efficiency = higher activity rate = high fury. Fury does not have a linear learning curve: if you can't manage it well, you likely can't manage it at all.)

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To put it simply, you just said what I've been saying - there is a disparity, but it's not great. The better the player, the greater the disparity can be seen. As I've said, in the hands of a very poor player, perhaps the ats are pretty equally balanced, with brutes doing less damage but having higher survivability - but with even an ounce of ability, a player can leverage the brutes advantages to do equal or better damage than a scrapper while retaining higher survivability and use the at's aggro abilities to his or her advantage.

I understand that in theory the disparity does not appear to be great right now, and as such, it is very unlikely to be addressed, and that is fine. Though we'll have more actual game experience after going rogue, my experience from playing the at's, especially watching them compete in the rwz and cim, the gap is not huge by any means. But to claim the at's are on par is simply not true, imo.

(sorry for the necro-post, but i hadn't seen this post so i wanted to reply to it...)

I think the big problem here is that we're not comparing real builds. I understand, of course, why Billz doesn't do so (and making such a comparison might not prove entirely useful in the end, anyways), but some of the sets in this comparison suffer highly from the lack of +Recharge while others are relatively unaffected. The same goes for pool powers, as well as a few other factors such as available enhancement set slotting.

I think if we wanted a definitive comparison, we would need actual builds to compare to each other. You could make all of them have a Willpower or Super Reflexes secondary to keep things fairly similar, but then actually capitalize on set bonuses properly as the primary demands them. It would make direct comparisons of the set an order of magnitude more realistic, although the logistics of such a comparison would make it quite a bit of work.

Basically, the comparison is interesting, but I don't think we can take it as a straight up this set > that set thing.

DPS chain calculations in a vacuum != same results as one would get by data mining actual performance.

DPS chain numbers != ATs peak/burst/average gameplay damage or anything other than simply, DPS of a given chain, at that recharge, with that slotting, and versus that endless bucket of HP.

I doubt the assumptions we're jumping to in this thread can be backed up by actual data mining. I mean come on, brute FM is on the top of that list. Fire, on paper has the most damage. I can safely say that in both scrappers and brutes, FM toons were pretty darn far from being the most fearful and envy generating toons.

I'm surprised how many 'nerf this' / 'buff that' comments that table alone generated. But again, seeing posted numbers, no matter how theoretical and situational they may be, seems to push peoples buttons to extremes.

We took some attack chains, with some recharge to it and said hey this is what this AT would do if they were hitting something thats not more or less resistant to it, long enough for actual dps to matter (basically a GM, pylon, or AV).

Of course if you up the recharge, add some pool powers, or assume you have rikti monkeys surrounding you, then all hell breaks loose and the order changes up immensely. Lets not even go into the blue bar and how to actually keep the chain going and going and going.

Now if you add in secondaries, some more rikti monkeys, wow look at that, some secondaries REALLY boost the damage don't they, while some really hurt it! Hello DM/SD Scrapper! Hello Fir/Fire scrapper nice damage you pulling with those double dmg buffs.

But hey we should jump to conclusions about the ATs and completely ignore the fact that the enemies that we would be wailing on, huge buckets of HP that make DPS a significant measure, tend to two-three shot both ATs unless they are def capped or in their tier9.

Attack chains, dps, are all very 'make you happy on paper' notions that are pretty damn insignificant in 90% of actual play. Especially when anything lower than bosses cant survive a few hits anyway.

I cringe at the thought of going rouge zombifying the Brute - Scrapper Horse.

I personally never have I felt that, IN GENERAL, my scrappers were under performing compared to my brutes. I also never felt my brutes were oh so more survivable than my scrappers. I tend to build ATs that are as tough as they get, so once you push the envelope that far, everything shines in one aspect and is utterly left in the dust in another.

Situationally, we can always take a slice of the cake that makes us point and say wow look at that, that AT is AMAZING under these conditions. But if we evaluate the whole AT or two ATs per regards to that situational performance, we're really mucking up our judgment.

I'm a little confused - this chart shows Scrappers with pools I don't see... how do you make a Super Strength Scrapper? That's not possible on my client....

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I'm a little confused - this chart shows Scrappers with pools I don't see... how do you make a Super Strength Scrapper? That's not possible on my client....

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In general, all powers have a single power template for the powers from which they draw. To get the power in the form we actually see, the numbers are modified by the various AT scalars. Scrappers have a 1.125 damage scalar. Brutes have a .75. Recharge, endurance cost, activation time and all other values are identical (except when the set is modified significantly like with Fire Melee across all 3 ATs). The power set choices that are impossible were made simply by taking the all of the powers from the existing set and modifying the numbers to account for the different scalars (Scrapper Super Strength had all of the damage increased by 50%). There's no assurance that it would be identical to these numbers, but it's an excellent predictor of performance.

Ok so essentially some of these combos simply aren't possible in the ATs as they exist today.

I thought I had missed something along the way =) Thanks for confirming it for me.

Sorry if it's already been answered, but why is Spines Scrap at the bottom of the list? I understand that most of the attacks are kind of weak, but doesn't the AoE count for anything? Is this just for ST?

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Sorry if it's already been answered, but why is Spines Scrap at the bottom of the list? I understand that most of the attacks are kind of weak, but doesn't the AoE count for anything? Is this just for ST?

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If you read the first results thread, you would have seen that all of these calculations are explicitly concerned with single target damage.

That's all I needed to know. Thanks.

This is all very confusing to me.

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EDIT: And looking at the numbers, MA gets a worse rap than it probably should.

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*Looks at his four martial artists...*

Yes, it does.

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QFT&E

WARNING: I bold names.

Are these two posts basically saying that against a single target opponent, as MA, you should just cycle through SK, CK, SK, CAK?

Is EC right out then on single targets? Since it has no AE value, should you even take it?

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Is EC right out then on single targets? Since it has no AE value, should you even take it?

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Well for DPS EC is bad, but that doesn't mean don't take it. I took because it is a cool attack to have fun with.

My Characters Deviont Art page Currently-reading Me Skydiving

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Are these two posts basically saying that against a single target opponent, as MA, you should just cycle through SK, CK, SK, CAK?

Is EC right out then on single targets? Since it has no AE value, should you even take it?

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Two items to consider: The chain listed needs something like 225% recharge in storm kick. Let's face it: The VAST majority of players are not going to see that level of recharge in their build.

Also, as was pointed out to me last night, unless you're fighting an enemy with KB protection, crane kick will often be knocking your opponent away from you, thus killing your attack chain.

It can't be stressed enough that when I made these spreadsheets, I had AVs and pylons in mind.

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Are these two posts basically saying that against a single target opponent, as MA, you should just cycle through SK, CK, SK, CAK?

Is EC right out then on single targets? Since it has no AE value, should you even take it?

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That's the top chain for DPS, but there are some potential gotchas. First, it requires +225% recharge in Storm Kick, which means Hasten plus a whole lot of expensive +recharge bonuses. Second, it has Crane Kick, which means knockback. So except against things that can't be knocked back (e.g., AVs, Pylons), you won't actually see that DPS. If you like Crane Kick for its mitigation or just because you like kicking things around, then you should still be happy with the chain. But a lot of people don't like that.

Eagle's Claw is a good attack, just behind Crippling Axe Kick for DPS, with better DPE, and you'll probably find a stun more useful than an immobilize in most situations. So if you don't feel the need for the very top DPS, you can certainly work it into an attack chain.

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Are these two posts basically saying that against a single target opponent, as MA, you should just cycle through SK, CK, SK, CAK?

Is EC right out then on single targets? Since it has no AE value, should you even take it?

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I worked with Werner on variants of this chain, and you could even replace CAK with EC for around a 5% loss of total DPS (Werner did the work).

Eagle's Claw is still a nice power, though the long animation does mess with long term DPS. The burst damage is good enough that you could still see action on it during normal play. If you learn to stack stuns, you can even use it as mitigation aganst Bosses and some EBs.

And as everyone else has said, you need a really high recharge to make use of that optimal chain. It's not always practical for many MA Builds.

QR:

I'll try to keep up with this topic. Redside Brute here, Infinity server. I'll also try to be as understanding as possible. I have many different brutes. I definitely understand the concern with going rogue that brutes may replace some blueside ATs. If this is the case, something needs to be done, but care must be taken so that the redside role of the brute is not nerfed. To put it more bluntly, nerfing brutes will certainly cause mass ragequit syndrome - which is even a more delicate topic than superstrength, and we all know how volatile that is. Onto the topic at hand.

The Analysis

A lot of the analysis is looking at end-game builds. To gain a larger picture one should also see how brutes and scrappers perform pre-SO, lvl 35, and of course, end game.

On my very poor math skills, I have concluded a saturated softcapped DM/Shield scrapper does better damage than a saturated DM/Shield brute. Survivability is nearly identical.

Further, I predict that the future Elec/Shield scrapper can surpass the Elec/Shield brute any day soloing a map set for 8. Be sure to calculate in the damage cap of the pseudopets and realize fury can be self-defeating in this situation. However, in both cases, I am sure that there are many people more qualified to prove this than I am. I would be very surprised if scrappers did not come out on top in both builds - even at the ideal 100% fury.

The Proposed Hardcap Reduction

An 80% resistance cap will devastate electric brutes. I say this having played two electric armor brutes to 50, so that is pre-powersurge, pre-IO, SO builds. Trust me, when powerset proliferation hits, you won't be soloing AV's on anything but perhaps a kat/elec scrapper, and even then, you'll need aid self. For resistance sets, brutes do need that 90% cap at times. Dark/Elec might be cool, but is nowhere near Dark/SR.

Fury

Fury on a team is incredibly variable and any attempt to quantify it will fail. I've played on teams and been able to sustain 80% fury. I've also played on teams where I was delighted to see 25% fury, which is incredibly poor damage. This is also incredibly typical of lower level play, where stopping for endurance recovery is common. I cannot tell you how many times I've watched in frustration as my fury bar dropped wanting so much to rush in and maintain it. I also cannot tell you how many times I've faceplanted doing this very thing. Fury leads brutes to do very stupid things.

At level 50, on a PUG ITF I regularly do not see anything above 33% fury, except for long, drawn out fights. If I'm teaming with multiple brutes or a tank, I'm not going to see less fury. The only case where I begin to consistently cap my fury is when I am the lead tank. These are 30-45 minute ITF runs.

I can set a map for 8 filled with ranged Rikti Gunmen on my /electric brutes. Even knowing I am nearly always saturated with attacks (to the point where the stuns break through my mez protection) I do not break 90% fury. That's constant attacks and constantly being attacked at the aggro cap. The average attack time is 1.5 seconds, and slightly faster on my elec/elec brute. This is the ideal situation for a brute - guaranteed aggro cap, ideal survivability, and unlimited endurance - you won't find this situation typical on a team. On this particular scenario, no scrapper will perform up to these standards. Let me see if I can pull some herostats for this. I have a few of these recorded.

Tread with Care

I will say that anyone calling for any nerfs to brutes will only lead to division and tremendous anger on the forums. Be prepared with valid and rational arguments of both math AND experience. I wish I had more scrapper experience. I will admit it is refreshing to not be bound to the fury bar at times.

tl;dr:

Please tread carefully, and do not seek to alienate a fellow melee class. Experiencing a brute 1-50 is important before any judgement is made.

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On my very poor math skills, I have concluded a saturated softcapped DM/Shield scrapper does better damage than a saturated DM/Shield brute. Survivability is nearly identical.

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This is where you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Brute and Scrapper survivability is only nearly identical when you only pay attention to baseline mitigation values. Brutes have a baseline survivability benefit that Scrappers can never eclipse because they have greater base HP. This means that, even if a Scrapper and a Brute have the same defense and resistance values, the Brute will still take more to kill him plus any and all native heals and regeneration values will be more effective because they're acting on the larger pool.

These are AoE dream builds, so the sustained damage is incredible, and goes to reinforce the point that calculating AoE damage is next-to impossible, as these are ideal situations - a constant supply of enemies at the aggro cap. If I can take out footstomp from the calculations, I might be able to get a more reasonable single-target damage rate.

SS/Elec Brute:
-Map Used: Longbow #15, set for 8
-Style: Back-Room Ambush (no longer possible)
-Enemy: Freakshow Swipers, +2 LTs(52s)
-Duration: 10:08
-Enemies Defeated: 188.00 (16.55/minute)
-Damage output: 222,106.12 (365.28 dps) - if only that was ST!
-Lightning Field and Footstomp contributed to 126,665.54 of that.
-Ball Lightning contributed to 59,513.95 of that

That leaves 35926.19 single target damage done, giving me a sustained ST DPS of roughly 150 over 10 minutes, which is conservative as I'm not subtracting the time from footstomp and ball lightning, which was fired 42 and 23 times respectively , which just made my ST DPS appear to be (~71 DPS). If I subtract the times for hasten and rage, I get ~73 DPS.

This may be case evidence, and this most certainly is not a single-target build, but it does reveal that the potential DPS is not as great as it would seem. This data was taken from an intense farming run under ideal circumstances.

I would like to ask some of the scrapper experts to choose any powersets shared by both ATs, create an ideal ST chain for both, and compare the average and maximum potential DPS. I have a feeling that even with 100% fury, scrappers will outperform brutes.

edit: I forgot to eliminate ball lightning. Fixing numbers.

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Brute and Scrapper survivability is only nearly identical when you only pay attention to baseline mitigation values. Brutes have a baseline survivability benefit that Scrappers can never eclipse because they have greater base HP. This means that, even if a Scrapper and a Brute have the same defense and resistance values, the Brute will still take more to kill him plus any and all native heals and regeneration values will be more effective because they're acting on the larger pool.

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My builds:
Scrapper DM/SD, softcapped to all positions:
1706.157 HP
Brute DM/SD, softcapped to all positions
1921.46 HP
% Difference: ~12%

I know this. I also know that both of these builds are absolute beasts. I'll have to work out the ideal chains on these still (I build for survivability over DPS, so I'm new to the attack chain approach of building that many scrappers on this board excel at). What makes it also more difficult is my chains on both will be quote different, due to the Patron and Epic pools.

The DPA on Midnight Grasp on both builds:
Both are saturated with enemies, soul drain, 100% fury.

Scrapper: 770.3 DPA
Brute: 649.8 DPA

~15% difference.

Once I sort out the chain calculations, I suspect to see similar differences in damage potential.

At least, that's on my builds.

With an innate heal, softcapped defense, survivability levels are similar, even with the healthpoint difference. Yes, I admit there is one, but at this level of gameplay, survivability is stunning on either build.

For some reason I'm having difficulty only exporting the link for the builds.

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The Proposed Hardcap Reduction

An 80% resistance cap will devastate electric brutes. I say this having played two electric armor brutes to 50, so that is pre-powersurge, pre-IO, SO builds. Trust me, when powerset proliferation hits, you won't be soloing AV's on anything but perhaps a kat/elec scrapper, and even then, you'll need aid self. For resistance sets, brutes do need that 90% cap at times. Dark/Elec might be cool, but is nowhere near Dark/SR.

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Tonality, I believe this is more a problem with Elec itself than with lowering the cap.

We'll find out when it does get ported, of course, but FA is also painfully weak on its own, and a lot of scrappers seem to be enjoying it regardless of that fact.

I think the actions of a handful of extremist outliars is not and should not be considered a meaningful data point. As Arcanaville has said - the devs can just hope to keep you guys from going too insane.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Spellcheck is your friend.

I don't disagree with either of you. For overall game balance, what someone can accomplish with a fully tweaked up billion inf build should for the most part be ignored unless it's actually breaking the game.

But this thread wasn't about that. The OP used basic IOs that anyone can easily acquire to compare single target damage output for the attack primaries that exist now and may exist shortly.